City Council chips in $100K for ball fields at Monroe HighMONROE - The city has agreed to commit up to $100,000 to help the Monroe School District build three ball fields at Monroe High School.
The entire project has a $3.2 million price tag, which includes all three phases of the three-field project. The first field is estimated to cost $937,276, which the city’s $100,000 contribution will help fund. The first field the district wants to build is a softball field.
The $100,000 was an amount suggested by former Mayor Robert Zimmerman, district assistant superintendent John Mannix said.
Mannix acknowledged that the district has a long way to go to meet the financial needs of the project: “We have significant work to do to raise the money to complete just that field.”
The school district is raising money in several different ways including selling surplus land, selling harvested timber and applying for grants.
“This is a good opportunity to partner with the school district, and the city is committed in funding assistance in developing these ball fields,” city parks and recreation director Mike Farrell said.
The school district also requested a letter of support for its tourism promotion area grant application, which was granted by the city at last week’s meeting.
The complete facility will consist of a football and soccer field (already completed), a baseball field, a softball field and a utility field. The fields will be suitable for fast-pitch softball, adult recreation league softball, and Little League baseball, according to the school district.
The money will not be given to the school district until 2015, so it won’t affect the 2014 budget, finance director Dianne Nelson said.
The council approved the spending in a unanimous 7-0 vote on Jan. 14.
“Our hope is that it can be used by the community as well, during after-hours and weekends for sporting events,” Mannix said.